EDITORIAL: Profound moral confusion and anti-Israeli protests
About those “peaceful” protests …
On Saturday, thousands of Hamas apologists and other leftists gathered in Washington, D.C.’s Freedom Plaza near the White House to demonstrate against Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. The Washington Post reported that the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine and other groups organized the rally.
One man who braved the cold to travel from Canada told the Post there was “a moral obligation for all of us to come and stand here for justice and call for an immediate cease-fire. We seek the truth, and we’re here.” Imagine the profound moral confusion that could lead one to excuse calculated mass murder.
Bob Hoge of the Red State website noted that some protesters were carrying ISIS flags. Others chanted platitudes about Palestinian genocide or repeated ditties — “Yemen, Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around” — in support of radical Houthi terrorists attacking ships in the Red Sea, according to Fox News.
Sounds like a fun crowd.
The protesters enjoy constitutional protections, of course, no matter how misguided or abhorrent the message. But the gathering was not without instances of confrontation. There was a strong police presence in an effort to deter potential violence, but some demonstrators had other ideas.
Fox News reported that journalists covering the event had to be relocated for safety concerns. Demonstrators rattled and damaged fences outside the White House. Onlookers yelled “Break it down! You support the murder of children,” the New York Post reported. Other protesters threw items at police officers.
“A few hundred lingered well after dark, rattling the fence and throwing water bottles outside the White House as police noted spots of graffiti spray-painted across monuments in the park and surveying anything that may have been damaged,” The Post reported. “At least one person tried to scale the fence as some protesters were trying to unhook a section of it nearby before police quickly refortified the barrier.”
Afterward, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela A. Smith explained that “there were instances of illegal and destructive behavior in Lafayette Park, including items being thrown at our officers.”
Strangely enough, the U.S. Secret Service reported no arrests were made.
This is not to compare what happened Saturday with the unfortunate events of Jan. 6, 2021. Yet why is it that the authorities in this case seem wholly uninterested in punishing unruly demonstrators who damaged federal property and assaulted police officers? Those who commit violent and illegal acts under the cover of “peaceful” protest must be held accountable for their behavior regardless of their political leanings.
